


Eden

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Depressing, Fifteen Minute Fic, Gen, Pretentious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-11
Updated: 2003-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 23:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2447183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside every person, something is broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eden

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was inspired by the 11/9/03 [15minuteficlets](http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com) word #28. I later expanded Ron's and Hermione's sections in [Shame](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2447255) and [Fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2447327), respectively.

Inside every person, something is broken. It may not be anything large or important, but something is always broken, imperfect, the edges misaligned and awkwardly bound together.

Hermione broke when she realized that the other children weren't interested in the books she read, didn't want to learn how the world was put together, couldn't be bothered to understand her, and closed her out of their world.

Ron broke when he heard his father tell his mother of another missed pay raise despite his growing workload, when his mother sighed and put her head in her hands and wondered aloud how she was going to afford thread to fit Bill and Charlie's old robes to Percy and the twins, and how she could make a small back garden stretch to feed the family.

And Harry? Harry broke when he reached out to his aunt and she frowned and pushed him aside again, muttering about burdens and worthless boys. He didn't understand the words yet, but any child can understand a frown and a swat and a lack of love.

Sometime, everyone learns that the world is not made for us, that we can't always get our way, that people aren't always going to love us, that things don't always work out for the best. Sometime, everyone reaches out and gets slapped back. Sometime, everyone asks why. And no answer ever quite fixes the break the way it was before.

Sometime, everyone tries to fly. Sometime, everyone falls. And at the end of the fall, we break.

**Author's Note:**

> Trivia Point: If you ever wondered about the source of my habitual username? This is it. I got my Livejournal invite code (back in the ancient days when LJ still used invite codes) as a direct result of posting this anonymously to [15minuteficlets](http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com), had no idea what to call myself (since Elizabeth Culmer contains a space and may also have been over the username character limit), and just grabbed something out of what I'd most recently written. I have occasionally regretted the way that "edenfalling" can make me look like a follower of a religion I'm not part of, but I've worn down the rough edges over the last decade and have long since lost any desire to start anew.


End file.
